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thanksforthecrabs writes to let us know that the Linux-sponsored Indy 500 car had a rough day at the track this weekend: it was the first car to crash on the track and finished dead last. Joost sponsored a car that came in a respectable seventh.

In other news the Windows Vista car was slow off the line, but the car looked good and the driver was heard screaming "accept" as the car lurched forward and stopped every time he used the accelerator.

Now, seriously, I find this a great idea: why have all sports to be sponsored by corporations? Individual sponsoring could be a good alternative.
I don't see the relatioship with Linux though. It would be more like Linux if the community designed the vehicle and even left all the innovations open for the other competitors to benefit from them (as long as they also keep their designs open). But this is not the case. It is a traditional "closed source" car, only that it is sponsored by the public in a more di

England 1740, industrial starts. Could we say ends 1985 for the UK. Now consider the birth of modern France (1795), Germany(1860), Italy (1870), USA (picking the Civil War 1865). They seem to coincide quite well. And you don't have shout to show how clever you are.

If the car had "won", would everyone want to adopt Linux? No.Putting your product, name or cause on a racecar is exactly why you don't see a "Windows" racecar.Every time that car had a mishap, lots of jokes would be forthcoming.The idea behind putting your name on a racecar is that if the car wins, then that winis somehow transferred to the product. "If whoever can put a good, winning car out there must have a super product." Back in the days when tobacco companies sponsored racecars, it was supposed to mak

I'm not in marketing but here's my take on it:-Race car sponsorship is not that easy. It's all about product visibility. I'm a big F1 fan but I have a had time remembering who sponsors who. But I can tell you who the sponsors are, just from repeated exposure. For instance Mclaren just had a 1/2 at Monaco who sponsors Mclaren? But I can tell you who sponsored Lotus in the late 70s and williams in the mid 90s, JPS and Sega respectively.

Well crashing the car did give them maximum exposure imo. I mean, instant youtube, going to flash around all the usual linky sites and even got a short mention on the channels showing it - more exposure than anything ending under top 10 (and not crashing) I think.

I understand where you're coming from, but I think you're on the wrong path.

It isn't about convincing folks that Brand A soap is better than Brand B. It's about exposure. If you watch a race (or any other sponsored event) you'll see the name over and over again. Next time you're at the store, there might be a bit of recognition for that product. Also (especially in NASCAR) there are people who are such fans of a certain driver that they'll buy the product on the side of his car. Strange but true.

There was a slashdot story about it, so you have no reason to complain HERE about not knowing about it.

Actually, there almost wasn't a story here; out of about twenty or twenty-five submissions that I saw cross the firehose on various days, only one was not written by a complete fucking idiot.

Some had the URL only in the submitter's name. Some had no links; some of those had the URL in the text, and some didn't. Most of the rest had stupid pithy comments about linux. Some of them had people whining about how it hadn't appeared on the front page yet.

This is the standard state of affairs. It turns out that slashdot isn't actually a more intelligent group than any other bunch of people who like computers and have web access; probably 90-95% of the story submissions suffer from the same problems. There would be a lot more stories on the slashdot front page if the majority of people who submit them weren't dumbfucks. The sad thing is that a lot of the submitted stories are quite interesting, but a leet-speaking myspacecase would do a better job with the submission. At least kids know how to make links in HTML.

This is the standard state of affairs. It turns out that slashdot isn't actually a more intelligent group than any other bunch of people who like computers and have web access; probably 90-95% of the story submissions suffer from the same problems. There would be a lot more stories on the slashdot front page if the majority of people who submit them weren't dumbfucks. The sad thing is that a lot of the submitted stories are quite interesting, but a leet-speaking myspacecase would do a better job with the submission. At least kids know how to make links in HTML.

Sadly, yes. I have been spending quite some time in the firehose myself, and it is pretty terrible. IMHO, the firehose needs some additional options besides just a thumbs up/thumbs down.

This submission should be on the front page.This submission is terrible but the subject should be posted on the front page.The subject is terrible.The linked-to article is obviously stupid/hoax/idiotic, but merits some discussion anyway.This submission is on the same subject as (identify another submission)

This way, the editors could see, "Hey, this block of 20 submissions were all identified by firehosers as being of the same subject, and the subject is considered important, I'll look at a few of the submissions and cobble together something."

This way, the editors could see, "Hey, this block of 20 submissions were all identified by firehosers as being of the same subject, and the subject is considered important, I'll look at a few of the submissions and cobble together something."

Erm... and in what way would this solve the problem of having crappy articles posted to slashdot?

Agreed. Aside from winning, crashing is the only other reason people would become aware of the Linux car. There were two "favorable" outcomes in terms of publicity and we got one of them, because there's no such thing as bad publicity.After all, you can't spell "infamous" without "famous"!

It also provides a potential launchpad for new funding next year. Lots of people like to root for the underdog, and you can't be much more of an underdog than crashing and coming in dead last. Next time around people w

That reminds me when Sun Microsystems fielded the only yacht to have ever sunk in the Americas Cup. Sun had this tongue-in-cheek orientation video with a "thrill of victory / agony of defeat" section that showed the video clip of their yacht, with the Sun logo prominently emblazoned on the side, going to Davey Jones' Locker.

He took me to his cabin and he told me his secret. 'I am not the Dread Pirate Roberts' he said. 'My name is Ryan; I inherited the ship from the previous Dread Pirate Roberts, just as you will inherit it from me. The man I inherited it from is not the real Dread Pirate Roberts either. His name was Cummerbund. The real Roberts has been retired 15 years and living like a king in Patagonia.'

You have a point with that beowulf cluster, there is slightly more to it than a simple joke though. What this incident really proves is, that a race car with a penguin painted on the side does not perform as well as a race car designed by a beowulf cluster of linux machines [linuxelectrons.com]. (And this is probably not the only one, it was just the first I found).

Concatenation of the discussion between my brother and I immediately after we heard about the crash:At first, it appeared to be a problem with the IndyCar extensions to X, given the user was able to take it down to a console-based tow truck (it wasn't pretty, but it at least got a controlled shutdown). However, further investigation showed it was definitely a hardware issue, as the system couldn't get back on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway network after a full restart of the engine. Most probable cause

of paying so much money for a sponsorship. The driver is not going to get a lot of media attention, and the only way Linux was going to get any television time was if a) the car won (unlikely) or b) the car crashed/engine blew up (very likely). Choice b would yield very little air time, and with drivers like Hornish Jr., Dixon, Castroneves, Kanaan, Wheldon, and Patrick, Moreno would have to get very lucky.

This is Grand Prix racing, not a bunch of hicks with tractors from NASCAR. You know, super expensive cars, handsome drivers with fancy European names like "Dario", silken ascots worn under tight-fitting racing uniforms, sponsorships by barely profitable Internet firms

Indycars is 'Grand Prix' racing? I could be wrong but I thought that label only applied to Formula 1.

Regardless, they did really good considering they only raise $16,000 for the race.

Uh, considering the cost of the car [even just the TIRES] - plus the fact that their goal was $250,000 - and I'm not sure what they accomplished other than a bit of publicity. This being many of the Indy 500's viewers first time even HEARING the word Linux, I'm not it was GOOD publicity...